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Cargando... Muerte con pingüino (1996)por Andrey Kurkov
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What they might approximate for the curious reader, however, is what it’s like to sit for a long late evening with a genial and gifted storyteller as he leads you through the most ancient and, in many ways, still most pleasurable functions of literature — making us wonder what on earth is going to happen next. The novel's hero, Viktor Zolotaryov, is a frustrated writer whose short stories are too short and too sensation-free to be published. When a newspaper editor offers him a new job as star obituarist, paying $300 a month to write 'snappy, pithy, way-out' pieces, he agrees. His brief is to select powerful figures from Ukrainian high society and prepare mournful articles in readiness for the possibility that they might suddenly die. But then the unexpected death of a senior politician after falling from a sixth-floor window triggers a clan war of killings and Viktor's obituaries are suddenly in demand. It is only later, when he discovers that his pieces are neatly filed in the editor's office - marked with dates for imminent publication although their subjects remain alive - that he becomes uncomfortable about his role in the eruption of violence unsettling the city. The obituarist assumes a pragmatic approach to the uneasy morality of his work - accepting the money and getting on with it. This approach is one which Kurkov believes many Ukrainians have been forced to adopt, and his book is free of any censure for the way characters behave. 'People have got used to the corruption. People here are flexible and they accept the new rules and don't dwell on moral questions. They just watch what everyone else is doing and try to find their own ways of deceiving others to make money for themselves to survive,' he says. Viktor's blossoming career is watched with melancholic disapproval by the gloomy figure of his pet penguin, Misha, adopted a few months earlier from the impoverished city zoo. In the cynical atmosphere of post-communist Kiev, the penguin is the only being which inspires in Viktor real affection. The silent, sad penguin is the key to understanding the novel as a portrayal of post-Soviet chaos, says Kurkov. 'The penguin is a collective animal who is at a loss when he is alone. In the Antarctic, they live in huge groups and all their movements are programmed in their brains so that they follow one another. When you take one away from the others he is lost. 'This is what happened to the Soviet people who were collective animals - used to being helped by one another. With the collapse of the Soviet Union suddenly they found themselves alone, no longer felt protected by their neighbours, in a completely unfamiliar situation where they couldn't understand the new rules of life.' Viktor, an impoverished writer and penguin-owner in modern-day Kiev, gets lucky when a local newspaper editor hires him to compose a series of obituaries of still living Ukrainian notables. But when his subjects start dying and acquaintances disappearing, it becomes clear that Viktor is involved in something sinister and he's better off not asking questions. Contenido en
Viktor es un escritor arruinado: est sin blanca, lo ha dejado su novia, tiene fro.
Imaginen si se siente solo que decide adoptar a un pingino. No sabe que este nuevo compaero de piso, Misha, tambin est deprimido: suelta suspiros melanclicos cuando chapotea en la baera de agua helada y se encierra en la habitacin como un adolescente. Ahora Viktor no solo est triste, sino que debe consolar a su amigo. Y adems alimentarlo. Todo se complica cuando un gran peridico le encarga escribir esquelas de personajes pblicos que an estn vivos. Parece una tarea fcil. Pero no lo es: los protagonistas de sus necrolgicas empiezan a fallecer en extraas circunstancias poco despus de que escriba sobre ellos. Misha y Viktor se ven atrapados en una trama absurda y violenta.
Una novela oscura y luminosa, con humor blanco y negro. Como la vida. Como un pingino.
Como lector, Muerte con pingino me divierte, emociona y sorprende. Como escritor, simplemente, me muero de envidia. Carlos Zann No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Imaginen si se siente solo que decide adoptar a un pingüino. No sabe que este nuevo compañero de piso, Misha, también está deprimido: suelta suspiros melancólicos cuando chapotea en la bañera de agua helada y se encierra en la habitación como un adolescente. Ahora Viktor no solo está triste, sino que debe consolar a su amigo. Y además alimentarlo. Todo se complica cuando un gran periódico le encarga escribir esquelas de personajes públicos que aún están vivos. Parece una tarea fácil. Pero no lo es: los protagonistas de sus necrológicas empiezan a fallecer en extrañas circunstancias poco después de que escriba sobre ellos. Misha y Viktor se ven atrapados en una trama absurda y violenta.